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Canadian on RCMP’s “high-risk traveller list” charged

Islamic State militants fire rockets at Kurdish targets in the Syrian city of Kobani on Saturday. The RCMP has a "high-risk traveller's list" of Canadians who have had their passports seized to deter them from leaving to join terrorist groups like the Islamic State. (ARIS MESSINIS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Mohammed El Shaer is the latest Canadian thrust into the spotlight as a possible threat to the country’s security.

The 26-year-old was on the RCMP’s “high-risk traveller” list — Canadians who have had their passports seized to deter them from leaving to join terrorist organizations — and was arrested last week upon returning to Toronto from abroad. He will appear Monday in a Windsor court on a charge of passport fraud.

El Shaer’s lawyer, Paul Esco, could not be reached for comment but had previously told the Windsor Star that his client was “quite surprised and in denial” and that he came back voluntarily last Wednesday.

The charge itself is straightforward. El Shaer was first arrested June 23 after returning from Turkey where, according to police, he made a false statement “for the purpose of procuring a passport.” When he failed to appear in court earlier this month on that charge, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.

El Shaer is not facing terrorism-related offences, but rather an allegation of making a false claim. If found guilty he could face up to two years in prison.

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But it is the spectre of terrorism and problem of Canadians going abroad to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State militant group that hangs over his case.

El Shaer is also associated with another Windsor man, Ahmad Waseem. Waseem is a self-professed jihadist who returned to Windsor from Syria this summer for medical treatment, only to go back over the protests of his family and friends.

A Twitter post this weekend on an account believed to belong to Waseem called the charges “sensationalized” and “bogus.” An accompanying photo reportedly showed the two Windsor men together.

Personal connections between Canadian on the Mounties’ high-risk traveller list are not surprising. Many young Muslims who have gone abroad knew each other and likely were influenced by the same factors in deciding to go to Syria. For those who claim they are erroneously on the RCMP’s list, they believe it is guilt by association.

But whatever the circumstances are for El Shaer, his case again raises the question of whether stripping Canadians of travel documents is an effective counterterrorism measure.

“Once you put that attention on them in the community, it further isolates them and nobody wants to have anything to do with them. They’re afraid law enforcement attention is going to come to them,” says Amarnath Amarasingam, a post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University who is studying Canadian recruits. “I think we need a drastic rethinking of what we’re doing.”

Muhammad Robert Heft, a Toronto Muslim leader and outspoken critic against extremism, doesn’t disagree with the idea of a list or taking passports, but also worries the isolation might push these Canadians “into a do-or-die situation.”

That may have been a factor for Martin Couture-Rouleau, who drove his car into two Canadian soldiers in Quebec last month, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Couture-Rouleau was on the list, had his passport taken and was visited by the RCMP just days before the attack.

Heft says the measure “has to come with something else” to combat the propaganda spread by the Islamic State, since the RCMP and Canada’s spy service will never have adequate resources to monitor every suspect. And he believes that responsibility falls to Canada’s Muslim communities and social services as much as security authorities.

“I know one thing for sure, the RCMP, as a policing agency, they can’t bring them back. They’re not going to be de-radicalized,” said Heft in a phone interview from Dubai where he is travelling. “Somebody who has that street credibility can reach them. But they have to break down their theology . . . and you have to help them along the way. And that’s social services and getting them jobs and mentoring and get them out in the community.”

Heft says it is difficult to offer alternatives when many of those who support the Islamic State’s ideology have “delusions of grandeur.”

“These guys really think they are taking on the establishment, they’re taking on the illuminati or Freemasons, or whoever they believe is controlling the world. Maybe they’re not doing anything with their lives, but on the Internet they’re a somebody or on Facebook they’re a somebody.”

The landscape in Syria changed dramatically with the emergence of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL), turning what was once a fight against Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s regime into the declaration of a caliphate across a region of Iraq and Syria under the Islamic State’s control.

Despite the continued oppression of Assad and frustration with the West’s inaction against his regime, the brutality of the Islamic State adherents, from beheading journalists to the reported torture of Kurdish children, has encouraged many Muslim leaders to speak out.

“I have told people, don’t go there,” said controversial Canadian Muslim leader Bilal Phillips when reached by phone Sunday in Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region in Somalia. “If you’re a doctor and you want to help sick people, if you have skills to help these refugees, that’s one thing.”

But Phillips, who was recently expelled from the Philippines and is banned from entering various countries, including the United States where he is accused of promoting hatred and preaching radical views, says he staunchly opposes the Islamic State.

“ISIS’s fight has been more against the other groups fighting in Syria than it is against Assad. . . . They’re now trying to force everyone to come under their leadership. They’re trying to create a state. They haven’t made overthrowing the Assad regime their goal.”

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